Board Certifications

Biography

Michele Mietus-Snyder, MD, is a preventive cardiologist and clinical research scientist transitioning in 2010 from The University of California, San Francisco, to a position as Co-Director of the Children’s National Obesity Institute.
Her early basic science research on genes important in early atherosclerosis impressed upon her how many cardiovascular risk factors function via common metabolic pathways that promote vascular oxidative stress, including unhealthful diet, sedentary lifestyle, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and psychosocial stress. The growing epidemic of childhood obesity places children, especially minority children, at heightened risk for early atherosclerotic disease through all of these pathways.

Dr. Mietus-Snyder’s current research is focused on the identification of lifestyle strategies to improve metabolic balance and heart health for all children, independent of economic circumstances. She is the Principal Investigator of a project entitled “Stress, Inflammation, and the Metabolic Syndrome” funded by the American Heart Association evaluating the role of psychosocial stress on the disproportionate burden of obesity and its cardiometabolic complications in inner-city children. She is also co-investigator on a longstanding research collaboration with Dr. Bruce Ames at The Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute and the USDA Nutritional Research Laboratory in Albany, CA, exploring the nutritional underpinnings of energy dysregulation and metabolic dysfunction.